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Here's 10 Minutes of Assassin's Creed IV Open World

If you're excited about the upcoming release of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on all current and next-gen consoles, then this is a dev-log video you'll not want to miss. 10 minutes of unadulterated, commented over in-game action, featuring pirate brawls, sprawling beaches and jungles and the bluest sea I've ever seen.

For those unable to watch the video below, it begins with a quick insight into how big the open world in this game really is. It's the largest Assassin's Creed ever, featuring over 50 major locations and 75 desert islands.

The protagonist runs ashore to Andreas island, heading to a nearby open-air tavern for some drinks, but not before getting jumped by several local ruffians. Funnily enough, the lead in a game called Assassin's Creed knows his way around a fight, even if several of the enemies do just stand around waiting to get punched.

As with previous AC games, there's new lookout sync points, which de-fog the map some more and act as fast travel points. Each of them will have a basic jump/climb puzzle to reach the top too.

Underwater sequences are also showcased, featuring a real 18th century diving bell - quite literally, a bell, with windows - that helps our lead make his way to the bottom of the sea to search abandoned shipwrecks. Look out for eels and sharks though.

Weirdly, the graphics seem to take a turn for the worse under water, with a lot of the foliage featuring jagged edges. Here's hoping that's cleaned up for the final release.

Next up are smugglers caves, which allow players a chance to get extra gold and resources, but if you access them from the sea, be wary as you won't have any weapons. However, every enemy that's killed or incapacitated, drops their weapon, so you can arm yourself relatively easily.

Don't piss off the authorities too much with your pirating activities though, as they'll send pirate hunters after you. These range from single ship privateers, to full on fleets of angry sailors, bearing down on your vessel.

But the biggest prize is yet to come. Harpooning helps you unlock some of the games more princely upgrades and requires you to harpoon everything from sharks to whales.

So what do you think guys? Apart from the many mentions about unlocks - I don't want to spend the whole game upgrading myself like this is some kind of Facebook game - it sounds and looks pretty awesome.

I think AC should have stayed with AC 1, to me it didnt make sense that a bunch of mystical types in Jerusalen would make their way into the De Vinci era and much less into the american civil wars and into pirates and islands... They could have just done a pirate game ala Sea Dogs with commerce, exploration and roleplaying.